What You Were and Might've Been
by amphitriteestelle
Summary: T'Pol has just turned one hundred and forty four the day the child is born. They have named him Spock. Slash, unmentioned but implied mpreg. Trip/T'Pol, Sarek/Amanda, Kirk/Spock.


A/N: Inspired by recent dabbling into ST: Ent. The episodes about Elizabeth really struck home.

* * *

T'Pol is one hundred and forty two years old when Sarek tells her that he and his human wife are attempting to have a child. She is one hundred and forty three when Amanda, a kind, compassionate human woman who somehow clashes perfectly against Sarek's cool dignity and reserve, excitedly tells her that they have conceived.

She has just turned one hundred and forty four the day the child is born. She is aware, when she wakes that morning before sunrise, that it will be born that day. The army of specialists in charge of Amanda's care have selected that day to induce her labor and, if all goes according to plan, let the birth occur naturally.

T'Pol rises earlier than usual that morning, taking an extra hour to sit at the window in her study and watch the sun rise. The day will be too warm and drier than usual. On a whim, she replicates a cup of coffee and doesn't drink it, setting it on the kitchen table and letting the familiar scent wash over the rooms. It has been seventy years, yet when she closes her eyes and breaths in the distinctive perfume of it, she can still hear the chatter of the crew in the morning and feel the hum of the engines beneath her feet.

She tries to be productive, first going through her over filled message inbox, but the work is tedious and can't hold her focus. She switches to reading, pulling up scientific journal after scientific journal to entertain herself, but it is a lost cause. Midday arrives and she has exhausted her resources. Unsure and slightly overwhelmed, she drags out a decades neglected box from the back of her closet and pulls the lid off for the first time.

It is the remnants of her time on the Enterprise, a collection of things she had kept in her quarters and parting gifts from her crew mates. Her commendations, still in perfect condition, rest on velvet under a glass pane. Her IDIC medal is slightly less new, roughened and scuffed from constant touches. Her uniform, rarely worn and heavily creased, is stiff when she lifts it from the box.

A small black picture frame sits near the bottom, wrapped in packing foam. She carefully turns it over in her hands, studying the image she has already memorized. It is one of the few pictures of Elizabeth; the child looks up at Trip, just behind the frame, a delighted curve to her mouth. Trip had given the frame and the picture to T'Pol a year after she passed, and it had sat on her desk in her quarters until the day she left the Enterprise.

A small data chip falls out of the packing foam. She picks it up and inserts it into her data padd, a bit surprised and impressed at the backdated software that is reading it. A collection of pictures loads onto her screen and she flips through them slowly, taking care to remember each picture individually. Some bring twinges of guilt or depression, but the majority are joyful.

She is still clutching the picture frame in her left hand when she receives the message from Sarek.

They have named him Spock.

* * *

Spock is nearly eight months old the first time T'Pol meets him in person. She has seen pictures, but she is eager and anxious to see how the strikingly dissimilar entities of Sarek and Amanda have combined into one personality.

He is not like her child, who was pale and rosy and had only wisps of blond hair on her delicate head. He is somewhat robust, a healthy green flush to his cheeks; the hue is Vulcan, but the way his skin colors with it and mottles slightly is entirely human in origin. He has thick, dark hair on his crown, though Amanda says that he was born with only a light dusting of it. He has a sweet, inquisitive face and bright brown eyes that inspect her closely before he allows himself to be passed into her hold.

He is calm, which she expected. They sit outside on the terrace, he in her lap and his parents next to each other, keeping up the conversation. T'Pol is entirely too enraptured with Spock to put her full attention into the discussion, but Sarek makes no comment and Amanda smiles kindly, a knowing light to her eyes. Spock watches his surroundings, curious to the point of distraction, somewhat carelessly using her as a brace to twist himself against to get a better look.

Eventually, he turns his attention on her, studying her carefully with young eyes. He reaches for her face with his hands, ready to explore with his fingers. She follows the motion with her eyes, feeling them cross each other as his small hands get close to her nose. He sees it and lets out a bubbling laugh, the first loud vocalization of emotion that she has heard from him. It startles her slightly, warms her to the core to see a small dimple on his cheek when he smiles, and she cannot help a small smile of her own.

His weight in her arms is so similar to Elizabeth and her chest aches with the depth of her grief for a moment, a crippling bolt of want ripping through her. She misses Elizabeth at that moment more than she has in years, wants to feel the weight and the warmth of her small body, wants back the lifetime she was robbed of, but would settle for just ten more seconds. With it comes the overwhelming grief for Trip, who should've been there, should've lived long enough to grow old and celebrate the new child born in Elizabeth's legacy, the child that is at once so painful and so beautiful.

She hugs Spock close to her and presses a kiss that isn't meant for him to his forehead. He goes back into his mother's arms happily and doesn't glance back once as he departs with his parents. T'Pol doesn't sleep that night.

* * *

T'Pol makes it her personal mission in her old age to watch over Spock, so she picks up and moves to Shi'Kahr when he is five.

She drops in on the family often enough that Amanda gives her the title of honorary grandmother, though Spock, the quiet child that he is, only blinks and returns to his studies. He is often silent until something intrigues him, at which point it becomes impossible to keep up with the outpouring of questions he poses.

Like human children, he begins to ask 'why?' about everything new that confronts him. T'Pol quickly recognizes the path his questions are likely to follow and answers them all before he can ask them, which in turn only leads to him seeking out her answer first. She discovers his passion for science, particularly physical sciences, and gifts him with highly informative books that he tears through with a drive that makes her proud.

She gives some thought to what Trip would do, were he there, and begins to observe Earth holidays. Together with Amanda, Spock becomes quite well versed in human tradition, and the small way his eyes light up on the gift holidays brings her enough enjoyment to continue getting him little trinkets well into his teens.

She isn't ignorant to the difficulties he faces, though. It is evident when he is younger when he returns from school frustrated and stiff lipped, but she is always glad to see determination in his eyes, not defeat. As he gets older, he cares less for their approval and it becomes somewhat easier, though he makes sure he far outstrips his classmates academically.

He is fourteen when he asks her about Elizabeth. She isn't sure why she has never told him about her; she didn't want to frighten him with her death or make him uncomfortable around her, she supposes. He came across her name in one of the historical texts about the Enterprise and curiosity got the better of him.

She tells him about the circumstances of her birth and the significance of her life. She tells him that without her highly unethical creation, the compatibility of human and Vulcan genes might never have been confirmed. She tells him that her life was lost to a glitch, that she died so that someday, another baby like her could be born. She tells him that her death was a tragedy, but his life is her legacy.

Spock listens with a solemn grace. T'Pol doesn't know, but she can imagine what it is to be in his place, utterly alone in the universe with only shadows to look to. The sense of loneliness, of being both but belonging to neither, strikes her deeply. She has watched him try to reject his humanity his entire life, hoping that he will be embraced by Vulcans if he does, and he is blocked at every attempt.

Humanity is messy, she knows, and quite repugnant to many followers of the Vulcan way. But it is a beautiful thing as well, and, seeing that Spock occasionally forgets, she takes it upon herself to remind him.

* * *

She is one hundred and sixty one when Spock tells her he is going Starfleet academy.

She is not surprised. She has known for some time that Vulcan, a planet of vast discovery and incredible learning, cannot hope to hold him. He is born for the stars the same way she was, and the way her Captain was, and the way Trip was.

He comes to her almost breathless with excitement, anxious and scared out of his mind but so, so exhilarated. He is riding on the gravity of his decision, eyes wide and voice shaking. He will make an excellent officer.

In a complete breach of culture, she hugs him. It's the human way.

* * *

She doesn't see him again until she is on Earth, roiling in the aftermath of the death of her species.

She finds him in Starfleet lodgings. She knows Amanda is gone, knows it before she sees him, but would've known anyway from the way that charming human light has dulled in his eyes. She speaks to him in a low, cracking voice, repeating his favorite nursery stories from his childhood. Her native tongue feels heavy and unused as it spills from her lips, but he draws a priceless comfort from it.

She speaks until her voice is raw and he has been asleep for over an hour. She sits by him on the bed, oddly pleased that he still sleeps like a human child, on his side with one arm sprawled out. She knows how much he had tried to break himself of the habit. She runs her fingers through his hair once, then takes her leave, content.

She is an old, broken woman, but it has nothing to do with the death of Vulcan. She is nothing if not honest with herself; she hasn't felt Vulcan in a long time.

* * *

She turns a lot of heads when she decides to stay on Earth, even when her species has relocated to a new world that they hope to make their own. She is too old to reproduce anyway, so she sees little point in participating in the facade.

She purchases a rather roomy home in a sparsely populated area, close enough to the city for her to catch a shuttle off planet in half an hour should the mood strike her. It is pleasant to be around so much green again; green was always something she missed about Earth. She spends an inordinate amount of her time reading on her front porch, indulging herself in paper bound Earth classics.

She's doing just that, on a dusty summer evening, when a vehicle pulls into her driveway alongside her own. The windows are tinted dark enough that she can't make out the figures inside for a moment, but the passenger's door swings open and a Starfleet boot steps out and she knows.

She is quick to set her book aside, standing to see Spock straighten out of the car. He is wearing traditional Vulcan robes with his boots, a mesh of the two worlds he lives in. From the driver's side, his Captain emerges, sun kissed and grinning at the feel of dirt under his shoes.

Spock walks to greet her on the steps, a rare softness to his eyes that she drinks in like water in the desert. He stands closer than he used to, a habit he must have picked up from humans. It delights her, the things she knows he is learning about his people, about life. She glances over at Kirk, who is rummaging in the back seat of their vehicle. He withdraws with an infant in his arms, cooing at the child and making soothing noises. She sees Spock follow her gaze and almost smile.

Kirk comes up the steps with the baby, who is not quite newborn but probably younger than Elizabeth was. Spock looks at Kirk tenderly and introduces him as _t'hy'la_, and she can't help the wave of pride that sweeps through her. Spock takes the baby from Kirk's arms and deposits it in her own, finding that she remembers the way to hold an infant with perfect clarity.

The child is delicate and rosy cheeked, with soft blond hair and beautiful blue eyes, clearly Kirk's child. However, the upswept brows and delicately pointed ears tell a different story. This is their offspring, wondrously akin to another baby she once knew.

Spock holds up his finger and the child wraps a fist around it tightly. Spock smiles with his eyes and opens his mouth to speak.

They have named her Elizabeth.


End file.
